French forces take over Abidjan airport; Gbagbo forces retake state TV and broadcasts say Sarkozy is plotting genocide; UN evacuates; more on Duékoué massacre, in articles posted as comments starting at the link.
By the CNN Wire Staff, CNN, April 3, 2011 -- Updated 1646 GMT
A suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in central Pakistan's Punjab province on Sunday killed at least 41 people and wounded more than 100 others, police said....The bomber blew himself up when he was stopped at the entrance of the Sakhi Sarkar shrine, Mubarak said....A second would-be suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden jacket was arrested at the shrine....
By Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, April 1/2, 2011
JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe's neighbors, long accused of being soft on its autocratic president, Robert Mugabe, are putting an unusual amount of public pressure on him to halt the political violence, intimidation and arrests that have surged since his party began agitating for elections in recent months.
BANGKOK —....The defendant, Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, has been in prison since November, charged with antistate propaganda for posting critical articles on the Web and giving interviews “maligning party and state institutions and policies,” according to the government.....
By Robert Pear, New York Times, March 31/April 1, 2011
Under last year’s overhaul, Medicaid rolls are expected to grow drastically, but budget woes have states reducing payments to caregivers, which is resulting in many being without access to necessary care. And the situation is due to snowball as more and more specialists refuse to service Medicaid patients even before the numbers of Medicaid patients are set to increase.
Clarence Thomas writes one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever.
....The law awards no extra points for being pitiless and scornful. There is rarely a reason to be pitiless and scornful, certainly in a case of an innocent man who was nearly executed. It leads one to wonder whether Thomas and Scalia sometimes are just because they can be.
Video caption: A London conference of 40 governments and international organisations has agreed to set up a new group with Arab nations to discuss a future for Libya after Colonel Gaddafi.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was at that conference and spoke to the BBC's Jonathan Head about whether there's now a clear strategy for resolving the problem in Libya.
By Laura Rozen, The Envoy @ Yahoo News, March 31, 2011, 9:30pm
Last Thursday March 24th, President Barack Obama, just back from a five-day trip to Latin America, convened his national security team for a White House meeting on Libya. The meeting came five days into the U.S.'s air strikes targeting Libyan air defenses and military sites. [....]
Exclusive: Contact with senior aide believed to be one of a number between Libyan officials and west amid signs regime may be looking for exit strategy
By Peter Beaumont, Nicholas Watt and Severin Carrell, The Guardian, April 1, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban are showing signs of increasing strain after a number of killings, arrests and internal disputes that have reached them even in their haven in Pakistan, Afghan security officials and Afghans with contacts in the Taliban say.
By Jake Tapper, John Karl and Russell Goldman, ABC News, March 30, 2011
President Obama has a signed a secret presidential finding authorizing covert operations to aid the effort in Libya where rebels are in full retreat despite air support from U.S. and allied forces, a source tells ABC News. The presidential finding discusses a number of ways to help the opposition to Moammar Gadhafi, authorizing some assistance now and setting up a legal framework for more robust activities in the future.
Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa is in Britain and "no longer willing" to work for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime, the Foreign Office says.....
A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We can confirm that Moussa Koussa arrived at Farnborough Airport on 30 March from Tunisia. He travelled here under his own free will.
In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers. Why is no one investigating and what have they got to do with the bloody battle for Pakistan's largest province?
New Libya commander: Stalemate not in anybody’s interest By Josh Rogin, The Cable @ Foreignpolicy.com, March 29, 2011
Adm. James Stavridis, the head of U.S. European Command and the top military official in the Libya war, told lawmakers on Tuesday that a number of scenarios are possible in Libya, but the continued rule of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi was not in the interest of Libya, America, or the world.
Note the headline on the web page is incorrect as to the article's contents. The BBC's Libya live blog link that alerted me to the story referenced it as I have titled it.
By David Gritten, BBC News, March 28, 2011
Amid the popular Libyan uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi, residents of towns and cities in the areas of eastern Libya controlled by rebels have formed an interim administration.
By Clyde Prestowitz, Foreignpolicy.com, March 28, 2011
As I have been urging for some time, it now appears that President Obama will appoint Google Chairman Eric Schmidt as the new secretary of Commerce to replace Gary Locke....Under Locke and his recent predecessors, the Commerce Department has been virtually invisible, with leaders who had little knowledge of, or interest in its potential for being the key to revitalization of the U.S. economy.
By Claire Cain Miller and Jenna Wortham, New York Times, March 25/26, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO —.... Computer whiz kids have long been prize hires in Silicon Valley. But these days tech companies are dreaming up new perks and incentives as the industry wages its fiercest war for talent in more than a decade.
Free meals, shuttle buses and stock options are de rigueur. So the game maker Zynga dangles free haircuts and iPads to recruits, who are also told that they can bring their dogs to work....
FAYETTEVILLE -- Two Fort Bragg soldiers, working along with an Afghan interpreter, embezzled nearly $1.3 million while deployed in 2009, according to court documents filed Thursday. Edwin Vando and Juan Lamboy Rivera each were charged in a criminal information filed in U.S. District Court. The document....alleges that the men took $1,297,959.31 in vendor payments owed to Abdul Wasi Faquiri Co. Ltd.
